


made feel less alone than i rightly should

by cinderrain



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Content Warning for... Elias, M/M, Prison, post-160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderrain/pseuds/cinderrain
Summary: “Maybe you don’t know the answer to your own questions just yet, but you could if you tried. Are you scared to try?” It’s not really a question. Elias’s other hand comes up to cup Jon’s face, fingertips running along his jaw and gently trying to tip his face up. Jon is -- distracted, from the question, by the sense that something doesn’t add up. Something about Elias’s hands, the cold trail of his fingers on Jon’s skin--
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 6
Kudos: 123





	made feel less alone than i rightly should

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "II. Were I In Trouble" by Robert Frost.

“Jon.” Elias Bouchard folds his hands, and his handcuffs clink softly. “It’s very nice to see you.”

Jon doesn’t sit down. Standing here feels more right, somehow, like keeping a desk between him and Elias back at the Institute, despite their surroundings. Like snapping at him about expectations and humanity, back when more of his coworkers were alive and on his side. Not that Jon has the energy to snap, now. There’s a feeling somewhere between headache and fog that he recognizes and hates as hunger. 

It takes him too long to say something, and Elias leans forward slightly, blinking in what could be mistaken for mild concern if he’d bothered to drop the grin. “Are you feeling all right, Jon? I know it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, but if this isn’t a good time for you, I’m sure we can make other arrangements. After all, I’m not going anywhere.” He spreads his hands, punctuating with metallic rattle. 

Jon clenches his fists, loosens them, tries hard not to Know how Elias is expecting a question. “Why did you agree to see me? Why now?”

“I missed you.” Elias smiles like it’s an inside joke. Jon fails to see the humour. 

“If you’re just going to waste my time--” Jon falters, unsure how he was going to finish that sentence. Somehow he was expecting Elias to interrupt.

There’s an uncomfortable pause before Elias speaks, picking the sentence up with a tone like he _is_ interrupting. “--then you’ll go back to Basira? Perhaps Detective Tonner will contribute some ideas. Or Melanie?” He leans back, watching Jon remember the way they look at him. “...like they have no idea what to do with you. By all means, Jon. If you think your time could be put to better use in other company, _you’re_ free to walk out through that door.” He gives his handcuffs a light, purposeful tug, and spreads his palms in a shoulderless shrug.

“Fine. Why didn’t you want to see me before now, then?” Jon’s hands grip the back of the chair he’s standing behind, white-knuckled. 

“You know the answer to that one.” Elias has the audacity to sigh, like he’s bored of the topic. 

“ _No_.” It turns out he does have the energy to snap, after all. “No, I do _not_.” He tries to lean in further, snarling, but he’s brought up short by the edge of the table. He shoves the chair aside and circles around to the side, slamming his hands down in front of Elias. “Useless excuses about my _development_ are not. _Answers_.” 

Elias doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch at the noise or Jon’s sudden proximity. It’s been like this from the beginning -- he complains that Jon won’t accept his help, but anything he does give is empty, barely related. It’s almost like he’s trying to keep Jon from knowing something specific, something obvious-- Another dizzy spell hits him, and Jon blinks, stumbles and leans against the table.

He’s suddenly not sure how much of his discomfort can be chalked up to Martin’s “intervention”. It feels like it was longer ago than it should be. He’s aware, with a restless unease, of how Elias is thinking about how Jon doesn’t even know what day it is.

“Jon.” Elias sits silent, impassive, perfectly still. Watching. He’s waiting for Jon to realize why he’s here. Jon feels like he’s being tested on something that he’d missed all the classes for.

“Elias,” he says, and it feels like folding, giving something up, dropping a pretense. The anger abandons him, and he loses its support, shoulders slumping -- he skips a moment and then he’s on the ground, kneeling. 

“What would you prefer, Jon?” Elias sounds genuinely curious. (He _is_ , but only idly.) “To be in here, failing to get answers from me, or out there, successfully drawing them from strangers?”

Jon shudders. He stares at his own hands instead of meeting Elias’s gaze, pretending that he can’t see the relaxed, open expression (the _fondness_ ) that Elias is wearing anyway, no matter where Jon’s physical eyes are directed. The outline of a handshake. A memento of answers, successfully gathered.

There’s the soft _tink_ of metal before a hand settles in his hair. Jon, in lieu of answering the question, fails to pull away. 

“You want the answers from me because it’s easier.” The fingers in his hair run down Jon’s scalp, curling just behind his ear. “Maybe you don’t know the answer to your own questions just yet, but you could if you tried. Are you scared to try?” It’s not really a question. Elias’s other hand comes up to cup Jon’s face, fingertips running along his jaw and gently trying to tip his face up. Jon is -- distracted, from the question, by the sense that something doesn’t add up. Something about Elias’s hands, the cold trail of his fingers on Jon’s skin--

The handcuffs. They’re gone. 

Jon’s gaze snaps up to stare at Elias, leaving the hand at his cheek hovering in the air for a moment before Elias withdraws it, folds it in his lap. There’s no sign that the handcuffs ever even existed--

“What-- Where are we?” Jon wants to shake his head to clear it, but Elias’s other hand is still resting in his hair, and despite himself he’s reluctant to dislodge the point of contact. “ _When_ are we?” Because he doesn’t remember coming to the prison, talking to any guards, anything in fact before walking through that door. He’d just _assumed_ \-- but Daisy and Basira aren’t back at the Institute, are they? Jon hasn’t been there in-- in some amount of time.

Elias smiles. “I knew you could do it, Jon.” His eyes fix on Jon’s, and Jon can’t look away. “I’ve already told you why I didn’t let you see me.”

Jon fixates on the tense -- past, but not past-before-this-incident, _past_ -before-the-end-of-the-world. Elias -- Jonah -- Elias, and the statement, Martin and the sky. _I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you... Knowing something you shouldn’t._ His lips part and he draws in a sharp breath as the knowledge floods in, and in the space of that gasp the stale prison air becomes something familiar, and Jon is kneeling on the carpet of Elias’s office.

“ _Where am I._ ” It takes more energy to restrain the _asking_ than to compel, and with Elias there’s no need to-- 

“There’s no need to work so hard anymore,” Elias agrees. “You can relax around me.” Elias demonstrates and settles back in his office chair, fingers still in Jon’s hair, and he looks as comfortable here as he was in handcuffs but somehow still more smug.

Jon can’t remember how he was going to finish his original thought. No need to pretend not to be a monster? No need to worry about hurting anyone? Whatever he tries, it’s in Elias’s voice, in his head. “Where am I?” he asks again, and it comes out softer.

“Physically?” Elias raises an eyebrow. “Wherever you fell asleep. For the only _where_ that matters, well. You are with me.”

Jon can’t muster the energy to be frustrated with that answer. He has a sinking suspicion that it’s as clear as Elias _can_ be about it, and it doesn’t make him feel any better. Elias waits for another question. Jon’s eyes unfocus slightly, in the way that gives away how he’s a little bit in Elias’s head right now, and then he catches himself and pulls back in, tries to think of a way to continue the conversation so he doesn’t wander.

The end of the world, and the ruined sky. “Is this how you imagined it would be?” Jon didn’t start the sentence meaning to intentionally compel, but halfway through, the remembered emotions come back with the events, and he narrows his eyes and puts a little extra _oomph_ into the words. It takes Elias by surprise. 

“No.” The answer comes faster than Elias wanted it to. Elias stares, still not angry, but not smiling anymore either. “It’s better.” 

What strikes Jon about that is that he knows Elias is lying. He _knows_ , which means that Elias has not lied to him about anything else since they started this conversation. He feels the difference in pressure between _No_ and _It’s better_ \-- the first thing he’s compelled out of Elias juxtaposed with the lie, like plunging from water to air. 

Elias cannot lie to his Archivist anymore, but he (mostly) no longer needs to.

Elias’s attention rests solely on Jon, his masterpiece kneeling at his feet, vulnerable, marked, perfect. Jon pulls away again from knowing Elias, but slower this time, and the look in his eyes is reminiscent of that time he looked to Elias for comfort, for reassurance about his humanity. (He knows better than to do that now.)

A thumb runs down the side of Jon’s throat, and he swallows. Tilts his head back.

Elias is touching him, calm, proprietary. For a second he forgets everything but Elias’s palm on his pulse, fingers curled loosely just over his collarbone. 

The other hand rakes through his hair, brushing it away from Jon’s eyes. “Isn’t it nice to have someone just be happy with you? Not stressed or worried every time they look at you, but genuinely pleased to see you?”

“Do you ever stop talking?” He can feel Elias feel the buzzing of his voice through the hand at his neck. It’s distracting. 

“You still worry about becoming someone else, Jon.” Elias traces his scars, dots and lines, his gaze still never leaving Jon’s eyes but his fingertips finding each place with unerring accuracy. “Don’t. You are exactly what I made you.” _And I made you perfect_ , he doesn’t say out loud, but Jon hears it and the warmth of the praise heats his face at the same time as the cold twist of self-loathing settles in his gut. 

“I didn’t ask for this,” Jon says, for lack of anything truer he could say and still keep his shaky distance. 

Elias just hums. He leans down and moves his hand to the back of Jon’s neck, and Jon lets himself be tugged just a little closer. Eye to eye, now, and less than a hand’s span between them. “I’ve said this before. You’ve made your choices, as I have mine. The rest of it is just--”

“--luck,” Jon sighs. His own _rotten luck_. He remembers, and he wishes he didn’t.

“And I am very lucky to have you, indeed.” Elias sighs a little, gives the nape of Jon’s neck one last squeeze, and lets him go. Despite the chill of Elias’s touch initially, Jon finds himself colder with its absence. “Our time here is almost up.”

Jon blinks, and the office around them fades out for a second. One last question: “Why am I here?” he asks, as he feels the dream go out of focus around them. “What did you need from me?” 

“Nothing at all.” The smile on Elias’s face is pleased, self-satisfied in an uncomplicated way. “This was... simply an indulgence.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm on twitter @cindrrain.


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